The barn owl is the widest-spread land bird in the world, inhabiting all continents except Antarctica. Due to its historic habit of nesting in manmade buildings and its appetite for destructive rodents, the barn owl has long been a valued frequenter of farms. A single family of barn owls can consume over three thousand rodents annually. In recent years, with increasing emphasis being placed on Integrated Pest Management (IPM), the large broods and voracious appetite of the barn owl have made it a favorite species for utilization in rodent control programs around the world. These rodent control programs are used in various different agricultural applications including, without limitation, sugar cane, dairy, crop, and fruit enterprises.
Unfortunately, the population of the barn owl has declined in many areas of the world, including, but not limited to, areas in the United States. One reason for this decline is a lack of nesting sites. The erection of nest boxes by conservation organizations and concerned individuals is a vital part of bringing the barn owl back to areas that it once frequented.
Individuals and businesses however cannot avail themselves of a mass-produced barn owl nest boxes since there are none on the market. Furthermore, there is no prior art relating to a nest box for barn owls. Several enterprises however do offer wooden nest boxes for sale, mostly on the Internet. Other people and businesses interested in putting up barn owl nest boxes build their own, often according to plans published on the Internet and in magazines. These wooden boxes are heavy, expensive to ship, difficult to install and, being made of wood, do not last long in the field. Many enterprises report that their wooden barn owl boxes last about two years, therefore compounding the expense in utilizing wood.
There are two main methods for mounting barn owl nest boxes. Nest boxes may be mounted in existing buildings or on posts in open fields. However, installing the nest boxes inside barns or other buildings gives the owls access to the interior of the buildings. Biologists have cautioned against this due to the presence of salmonella and other pathogens in barn owl feces. Also, new prefabricated metal barns present their own problems. For one, as these barns have replaced old, airy, wooden barns and have taken away traditional nesting sites for barn owls, mainly, there are no cracks or holes for the birds to enter. Therefore, these metal barns have contributed to the barn owl's decline. Second, no barn owl nest box on the market is designed to fit into the barn in such a way as to afford the barn owls a nesting site but deny the owls and pest species access to the interior of the barn. Pole mounted boxes are usually placed in open fields in full sun, and this presents the problem of overheating, particularly in sub-tropical and tropical climates.
The problems created by the use of wood, including, heaviness, expense of shipping, difficulty of installation, need for frequent replacement, overheating in sun, and lack of adaptation to modern metal barns, have most likely limited the willingness of farmers to utilize barn owls in their IPM schemes despite the good results reported by those who have been using barn owls for such programs. In turn, this has limited the potential benefits of IPM, namely a decreased use of rodent poisons, less poison in the food chain and the environment, decreased costs to the farmer, and higher profits. Many of the above-mentioned problems inherent to using wood can be overcome by using plastic. However plastic presents its own problem, namely that the absorption of heat of plastic is even greater than that of wood.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for improved techniques for providing a barn owl nest box that is lightweight, weather resistant, less prone to overheating, and easy to install in buildings and on poles.
Unless otherwise indicated illustrations in the figures are not necessarily drawn to scale.